Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Trading Cards

Residents of various outposts are "voluntarily" packing up and moving out.

This is part of a larger package where the government will supposedly "legalize" and permit additional housing in existing settlements in exchange for removing the outposts.

This deal is good for the government, who simply controls the permits and the speed they are processed (most settlements have permits to extensively build going back years, but the final signature on the defense department form is then held back for years).

The government can show the Americans that they are taking down outposts (of course, ignoring what the Americans will ask for next once all the outposts are destroyed, as it doesn't stop there).

The Jews get to build some more needed housing in existing settlements - maybe, as that has yet to be seen - after all we saw how the government reneged in the Hebron deal.

But... this is a bad deal.

The government is likely to renege, and while it is easy to say that an outpost taken down is an outpost that can be returned it is not that simple.

First of all, what is called an outpost in many cases are caravans and farms that have been cultivated for years - on Jewish owned land, mind you.

Once they are abandoned, we all know the process of how the land gets stolen, even beyond Peace Now (notice how no one is talking about their alleged massive tax fraud anymore?) and their documented false reports (notice how outside of Makor Rishon, no one discusses how they fraudulently misrepresented and mistitled the data?) .

Unfortunately, the settlements are feeling the crunch of the government's freeze as we have such a high demand from Israelis all over Israel (and our expanding families) who want to move here and join us, but we don't have sufficient housing available for all those myriads.

The government controls the tap (while the Americans spin the faucet).